In the last twenty years, the use of personal computing devices, such as desktop computer systems, laptop computer systems, handheld computers systems, and tablet computer systems, etc., has grown tremendously. These personal computing devices provide users with a broad range of learning opportunities, interactive applications, business utilities, communication abilities, and entertainment possibilities.
Current personal computing devices provide access to these interactive applications via a user interface. Typical computing devices have on-screen graphical interfaces that present information to a user using a display device, such as a monitor, display screen or audio output, and receive information from a user using an input device, such as a mouse, a keyboard, a joystick, or a stylus.
Even more so than computing systems, reading books is ubiquitous among literate societies, and, by definition, a requirement of literacy. Wile a variety of computer-based devices have attempted to help teach people to read in a myriad of ways, typical on-screen graphical user interfaces have difficulty mimicking the “look and feel,” portability durability and ease of use of conventional printed matter.
Some commercial learning and entertainment products allow a computer or electronic device to be responsive to a user's, e.g., a child's, interaction with a book. However, some of these systems require a special apparatus onto which the book must be place in order for the position of a stylus, relative to the book's pages, to be sensed or detected. Use of this apparatus may limit the portability, usability and desirability of such systems, and detract from the overall user experience.